lamp. The steam was emitted through this small aperture in a visible jet upwards of a foot in length. But when a candle was held with its flame immediately beneath the end of the tube, the jet became invisible. To determine whether the water might be decomposed, or the steam simply expanded so far as to be absorbed by the air, or if condensed to form a vapour too thin to be perceived, he suffered the hot invisible current which had passed through the candle to pass through a larger glass tube: in this case visible steam issued plentifully from the farther end. Hence (says Mr. N.) I am disposed to judge that the large tube having kept the very hot steam together, and cooled it so as to render it visible again, there was little if any decomposition of the water. But, at the same time, when we consider the disappearance of the dense smoke in Mr. Giddy's experiment, there seems to be great reason to think that the charcoal was oxygenated and gassified. If so, the products must have been expanded into invisible steam, hydrogen, and carbonic acid. By collecting the products in an experiment of this kind, these conjectures will either be verified or refuted. If the former, we shall have the decomposition of water and oxygenation of carbon at a lower temperature than has hitherto been shown or expect

ed.

Mungo Park, with his companions, who sailed from Portsmouth a few months ago, having touched at the islands of St. Jago and Goree, arrived at Kayay, on the river Gambia, on the 14th of April, whence they were to proceed in a few days into the interior of Africa. The heat was at that time so excessive, that the thermometer was, in the middle of the day, 100 degrees in the shade, and frequently three hours after sunset it continued from 82 to 92 degrees.

An almanack of the Ramazan has been printed, for the first time, at Constantinople, under the direction of Aldorahman, Printing was in

troduced into that city in 1726, by Said, who had been at Paris with his father the ambassador, and by Ibrahim, a Hungarian. They were protected by Achmet III, and printed several books, but the almanac never made its appearance before.

Lalande solicited the restoration of the Gregorian calendar in France, but the emperor has contented himself for the present with ordering that the 1st of January, which is reckoned in the number of family festivals, by a great majority of the French, should be celebrated.

M. Benzenberg, professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at Dusseldorf, has published twentyeight experiments, with balls carefully turned and polished, which were dropped from an elevation of 262 Paris feet. They gave, on an average, a deviation of five lines towards the east, though theory assigns only four lines and six-tenths. These experiments were made in the coal mines of Schebusch. They would afford additional proof, were it necessary, of the movement of the earth, concerning which it is impossible to entertain any doubt. The latest experiments made at Bologna by M. Guglielmini afforded nearly the same result.

The aerostatic experiments made at Bologna in Italy, on the 7th of October, 1803, and the 22d of August, 1804, by M. Zambeccari, have been published by the society of Bologna; and we there observe oars and other contrivances which cause us to hope for great improvements in this important discovery of Montgolfier.

M. Dupuis, of the Institute, has read a curious memoir on the pho nix. He demonstrates that this celebrated bird never existed. It was stated to return at periods of 1481 years; but writers vary considerably relative to this duration. Herodotus relates many wonderful things concerning the phoenix; Pliny speaks of its reproduction; Tacitus informs us, that it repairs to Heliopolis to die. It was consecrated to the sun. One of the times of its

appearance occurred during the reign of Sesostris, 1328 years before our era. Horus Apollo and Nonnus assert that it was an emblem of the sun, and one of the names of that luminary.

In a medical thesis, Boulet had raised doubts concerning the age of Hippocrates, in consequence of a passage of that author on the rising of Arcturus; but Dupuis has remarked, that a single observation is sufficient to destroy the whole theory of Boulet, who asserts, that the rising of Arcturus is a heliacal rising, against the express text of Hesiod, who says, that it is a rising of the twilight which takes place at the close of day, at the beginning of the night. If it were true, as he maintains, that the colures of the equinoxes ought to be placed so as they must have been three thousand years ago, so far from finding that their positions correspond with those stated by Hesiod, we should see that Sirius was not visible under the parallel of 39 degrees, and the other appearances would not have happened at the period indicated by Hesiod. So great a change in the declination would thence result, that the risings and settings would no longer correspond to the periods of the year to which the author has referred them. A map of Holland is preparing in that country with infinite pains: the same precautions are observed as if the point in question was the mensuration of a degree. De Zach has given in his Journal the chart of the triangles which are already finished; they adjoin to those measured by Delambre for the great meridian; and the distance between Dunkirk and Montcassel is taken for the first side. When the triangles are completed, a base will be measured towards the north for the purpose of verifying them. The Batavian republic has charged colonel Krayenhoff with the superintendance of this new map.

M. Rochon, who, in the third volume of his voyages, gave an easy method for reducing the distances observed at sea, has this year pro

cured a curious instrument to be made for still farther facilitating those calculations. He has likewise published an important work intitled, "Voyage to Madagascar, to Morocco, and the Indian Seas," accompanied with maps of Madagascar and the East Indies, a vocabulary of Madagascar, astronomical tables to find the longitudes at sea; in three volumes, octavo.

A very beautiful hydrographical chart of the White Sea appeared in the month of November, 1804, at Petersburg. The author is lieutenant-general Kutusoff. Several naval officers have been employed four years under his direction in collecting the materials necessary to the composition of this chart. The coasts of the White Sea, of its gulfs, and of part of the Frozen Ocean, are drawn from trigonometrical surveys; its depth has been measured with care, and sixteen of the principal points of the coast have been determined by astronomical observations.

Lartique, who has for thirty years been attached to the depot of the French navy, has completed a large and beautiful map of America in relievo, exhibiting the mountains and islands, and the colours of the sea, in such a manner as cannot fail to interest all those who study geography: even the blind may learn that science from it.

Coulomb has read to the French Institute an interesting memoir on the effect of heat on magnetism. At 200 degrees of heat it loses twofifths, and the whole at 700 degrees, at which the tempering of steel only commences.

To ascertain those elevated degrees which the thermometer cannot indicate, Coulomb puts a pound of ignited iron into a pound of water, the heat divides itself between the steel and the water, and you perceive the relation of the caloric to the two substances; the water changes nine times less than the iron; it requires nine times the heat to raise the water to a certain temperature than iron.

A letter, recently transmitted by the French captain-general Ernouf, at Guadaloupe, to M. Faujas St. Fond, communicates, among various observations on natural history, the following notice: "Your son has undoubtedly informed you, on his arrival in France, of the excursion I have made in this island, and has told you that I have visited the celebrated Cote du Mole, where the remains of Caraibs are found enveloped in masses of petrified madrepore. I have held out encouragements to an active and intelligent person, with a view to procure some of these remarkable skeletons.Those that are in the best preservation I intend for the galleries of the Museum of Natural History. I have sent some negro stone-cutters to the person who superintends the work, the execution of which is attended with great difficulties; in the first place because these remains of Caraibs adhere to a bed of madrepore of excessive hardness, and which can only be attacked by the chissel; and in the second, because the sea, at the tide of flood, covers the place where they are. These human relics are of large dimensions: the mass which it is necessary to extract with them is about eight feet in length, and two and a half in breadth, and weighs about 3000 pounds; but the sea facilitates their removal. Opinions are divided concerning their origin: some say a bloody battle took place on this spot between the natives of this island and those of another. Some again assert that a fleet of canoes was wrecked there; and others presume that the place was formerly a cemetery on which the sea had encroached.

A new academy has been instituted at Paris, the object of which is to collect and explain Celtic monuments, and to extend researches into primitive languages. It has assumed the name of the Celtic Academy, will publish memoirs periodically, and propose prize-essays. A member of this academy is said to have discovered a method by which

VOL. V. NO. XXVIII.

two persons may correspond and converse without understanding each other's language.

M. Cadet de Vaux proposes, as a remedy for the gout, that the patient should drink forty-eight glasses of warm water in twelve hours, a glass at the end of every quarter of an hour, taking nothing else during the time. This remedy, we are assured, has been tried with great success in France; and it is thought that the profuse perspiration which this process occasions is the cause of the cure. The trial is easily made.

M. Eichhorn, well known among the German literati, has published a History of Literature from its origin to the present time, of which a translation is preparing in London.

M. Quatremere-de-Quincy, dissatisfied with the descriptions of Pausanias, the abbé Barthelemy,' and others, has written a long memoir upon the statue and throne of the Olympian Jupiter, the celebrated work of Phidias. He has subjoined to this memoir a figure of this monument of art, such as it was in his opinion.

By a late decree of the French government it is ordered that no church-book, psalm-book, churchmusic, catechism, or prayer-book, shall for the future be printed without the express permission of the bishop of the diocese, which permis sion is to be affixed to each copy. All books not licensed in this manner are liable to be seized, and the publishers and purchasers are subjected to very heavy fines!

Dr. Lafuente has published a memoir, by command of the king of Spain, which contains a new method of curing the yellow fever. According to the experiments of Dr. Lafuente, bark is the most powerful remedy for that dreadful disease. By taking from eight to ten ounces of that powerful antiseptic in the first forty-eight hours of the disor der, the fatal consequences of the yellow fever, or any other fever, may be prevented.

9

The Jews at Hamburgh have resolved not to bury their dead before a lapse of three days, to prevent the dreadful consequence of premature burials, which are so generally prevalent among that people.

M. Prony has lately been engaged in a series of new experiments to ascertain the initial velocity of projectiles discharged from fire-arms. The experiments were made with a soldier's firelock and a horseman's carbine, the lengths of which in the bore were 3 ft. 8 in. and 2 ft. 5 in. The balls weighed 382 grs. troy, and each was impelled by half its weight of powder. The mean velocity with the carbine was 1269 feet and a half in a second; that with the musket 1397 feet. These numbers being in the ratio of 11 to 10 nearly, it is inferred that the length of the soldier's firelock might be reduced without much diminishing its range. With half charges of powder the mean velocities were 8224 feet and 829 in a second.

The emperor of Russia proposes forming an institution at Petersburg for the purpose of improving the navy, which is to be called the Marine Museum. In this institution, lessons in all the sciences necessary to be known by a sea-officer will be given. It will publish a sort of journal upon every subject that concerns the marine. There will be attached to the museum a library and a collection of natural history, which, will be constantly open to the students. The establishment is to be under the direction of the minister of the marine, and the members are to wear a uniform like that of the marines,

General Alexander Palitzyn has translated into the Russian language the Voyage of Lord Macartney to China, which will be accompanied with very fine plates.

The university of Landshut has offered the degree of doctor of philosophy to any one of its pupils who should point out in the clearest manner, in the fragments still extant concerning the mystic, sects of antiquity, such as the new Platonists,

the Pythagoreans, the Gnostics, the Origenists, and in the more modern works of the scholastics, the Theosophists, the Cabalists, and the school of Jacob Bohm, the materials of which professor Schelling has composed his philosophy.

The celebrated aeronaut, Robertson, has announced his intention of constructing a balloon 136 feet in diameter, and capable of raising the weight of 740 quintals (about thirtythree tons.) Fifty persons will be able to embark in it with comfort, and will find in it all the conveniences of animal and social life, and provisions for several months. The balloon may travel at all elevations and in all temperatures, and may be employed to make physical and astronomical experiments in all parts of the world. Geography will derive from it great advantages, because the aeronauts will not be checked either by mountains or by forests. Perhaps, with the assistance of the trade-winds, it may even make the circuit of the globe between the tropics. The globe for this apparatus will be made of taffeta manufactured on purpose at Lyons, and of a boat of deal, weighing 20,000 pounds. will be furnished with cordage of silk and provisions, and will have its kitchen, two workshops, a washhouse, an observatory, a chapel, an academical saloon, a card-room, and a concert-room. It will likewise carry a smaller balloon and a parachute in case of accident. The honour of constructing such a balloon, which according to the ingeni ous projector will not cost more than a ship of the line, ought, he says, to belong to all the learned societies of Europe.-He therefore invites them to contribute to the expence, and ensures to each subscribing academy the right of furnishing two aeronauts for this scientific expedition

It

His majesty the king of Prusia has given orders, that as the mineral fumigations of Guyton Morveau are proved to be the safest preventative against the yellow fever, they they shall be adopted in all the Prus

sian harbours, and in all vessels under quarantine, or coming from suspected places.

A German gentleman, travelling through different places in Spain, at the time when the yellow fever made its ravages, observed, that of all kinds of birds the sparrows only had some notion of the dangerous influence of this disease, so far that they left the houses when the infection had taken place, and by no allurement were to be induced to return, while other birds fell a victim of their ignorance. The inhabitants therefore considered the continuance of the sparrows in a dwelling-house as a certain proof of its being free from the contagion.

The very valuable library of the late professor Baldinger at the_university of Marpurg is now offered for sale, either public or private, by his heirs. It would certainly be a great loss if such a treasure of rare works should be scattered by public sale. The library consists of more than 16,000 volumes. Among others there are nearly one hundred and thirty editions of the works of Hippocrates; and also all the different editions of the medical classics, and other rare works, besides 13,000 academical dissertations.

By a ten years comparison of the bills of mortality of Vienna, the number of deaths upon an average amounted to 14,600 and among these 835 children fell a victim to the natural small-pox every year. But since the introduction of the cow-pox no more than 161 children died of the small-pox in 1801; in the year 1802 only 60; in the year 1803 but 37; and in the year 1804 only two children, and of these one belonged to foreign travelling parents.

Dr. Kopp has made interesting inquiries on the spontaneous combustion of the human body. It was formerly an almost general opinion that the combustion only took place in drunkards, and it was believed that their whole frame was impregnated with the spirituous liquor. But on comparing the different caşes which Dr. Kopp has had an op

portunity to collect, it appears that the combustion chiefly takes place in elderly people, and mostly in women. In general in all these instances the victims were very fat or very lean, which proves a weak state of the constitution, and they were accustomed to drink spirituous liquors. The combustion penetrated rapidly the whole body, but the trunk was the most injured. Almost in all cases a fire was at hand. In several instances the patients complained that they perceived something like an electrical stroke in some part of the body. The accident mostly happened when the atmosphere was dry and clear, and an empyreumatic smell surrounded the persons. It is therefore probable that an asthenic state of the lymphatic system may be considered as a predisposing cause, in consequence of which inflammable air might be collected in the cellular membrane and other cavities of the body; and, in the same manner as a watery fluid is collected in the cellular system in the dropsy, it may contain, when such an accident takes place, a collection of inflammable gas. It is very probable that electricity has some influence, as in several instances the combustion began with an electrical phenomenon. The flame is like the inflammable gas, and spreads in general so rapidly, that it has been impossible to give assistance to the victims of this horrible disease.

A correspondent of the "Decade Philosophique” has lately communicated to the editors a discovery which he made by accident of a method of preserving mushrooms dry without deforming them. Botanists, he observes, know how to collect and preserve plants; but he has never yet heard of their being able to preserve mushrooms. The author lives near the sea-shore, in a country, the soil of which is sandy, and where downs are formed which frequently shift their place. In traversing on foot one of these downs, he met with mushrooms buried under the sand, and which